Scholars: Even Speed Bump in Indiana Can’t Stop Trump Steamroller

A dispassionate analysis of the hard-fought contest to win Indiana’s Republican presidential primary reveals that even losing the state will not do much to halt Donald Trump’s path to the GOP nomination.

Trump has a 97 percent chance of winning enough delegates to capture the GOP nomination on the first ballot even if he loses Indiana, according to the Princeton Election Consortium, a collection of scholars who have analyzed poll results.

If Trump wins in Indiana, the group said the probability that he hits the magic number of 1,237 delegates increases to 98 percent.

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“Media types want you to get your knickers in a twist about Indiana. However, the data suggests that it doesn’t matter any more,” wrote Sam Wang, author of the recent report on the group’s analysis, which predicts that Trump will run strong enough in New Jersey, West Virginia and California to surpass the goal.

“Rationally speaking, it is probably time to stop writing so much about the Republican race for delegates. Also, may we have a moratorium on ‘brokered-convention’ articles please?”

Sen. Ted Cruz leads Trump 45 percent to 29 percent among registered voters, according to a poll by the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics. Ohio Gov. John Kasich places third at 13 percent. However that poll is the only one showing Cruz with a lead.

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Trump leads Cruz 41 percent to 32 percent with Kasich trailing at 21 percent, according to an American Research Group poll.

Most polls have shown Trump leading Cruz by margins of between two and eight percentage points.

Although the Princeton group projects Trump will succeed no matter what happens in Indiana, others portray the contest as pivotal.

“It’s hard to overstate the importance of this state,” Steve Kornacki wrote on MSNBC. “This is because a very small shift in the vote could produce a major shift in delegates. This has to do with how Indiana distributes delegates: 30 to the statewide winner, plus three to the winner of each of the state’s nine congressional districts.”

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A big Trump win could give him a huge share of delegates; a strong Cruz showing could limit Trump’s haul to the single digits, Kornacki wrote.